A new short film premiering later this month at the Cindependent Film Festival is so unmistakably Cincinnati it hurts. So Cincinnatian, in fact, that the film used a fake print issue of CityBeat as their promotional material.
Needless to say, it got our attention.
“Coloring” is a mockumentary comedy starring Spencer Lamb (also writer/director) and Sydney Malatesta about two struggling, pretentious artists trying to make it — except their art is no better than that of a child’s, drawn in crayon.
In the film, Lamb and Malatesta go all over the Queen City acting as artists trying to distribute their work to the unwitting public, who have no idea that they’re being filmed as part of the movie. The production crew obtained absolutely zero permits to film as they traipse around recognizable landmarks like Washington Park and the Cincinnati Art Museum, trying to convince someone to give their art a platform.
Picture a mix of awkward satirical comedies like “Nathan for You” and “How To with John Wilson” alongside wackier fare like the fictional docuseries “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” and you’re on the right track.
“Our characters are dead serious and super ambitious, and in their eyes, they are very sophisticated artists,” Lamb said. “But the art they make is done with crayons, markers and colored pencils, and it’s really quite juvenile. I’m still pretty new to filmmaking in the grand scheme of things, so I’m trying to figure out how to be like a serious, adult artist, and I always feel so silly doing that. And the movie is about that feeling, I think.”
Originally, the two made a shorter, seven-minute-long version of “Coloring” that took just ten days to make and featured more traditional plot elements. But at the premiere, Malatesta came up with a bit that would shape the course of the project’s future.
“Before the premiere, I decided I was going to go completely method, and show up in character as this pretentious artist, and go around the theater acting really snobby while I showed people my art. And everyone was very confused and put off by me,” she said, laughing. “But then after everyone watched the movie, everyone was like ‘Oh, I get it now.’ And afterwards, we realized, ‘Wow, that was such a fun thing to do.’ So then we had the idea of being on the street and making regular people interact with these snobs.”
Thus, the idea for Coloring’s true form came about.
During filming, the two would show up in public places with “a very loose idea” of what to film, but the majority of their takes were simply one of the two actors talking to random strangers and seeing what comic elements arose.
“A lot of the material in the film is just these characters interfacing with the public and doing this really vulnerable thing of showing their terrible art to strangers and being like, ‘What do you think? Tell me how you feel about it,’ and seeing how they react,” Lamb said. “I wanted to let the chaos of the universe guide this film … Our process was very backwards, because we’d shoot first and then write the story. We’d put together a cut, and I’d notice something interesting, then we’d go back and shoot it over and over again. We probably have enough footage to make a three-hour-long movie, but what we have now is very tightly honed and very funny.”
One of the people involved in the film’s antics is probably not a face you’d expect to see in a Cincinnati-based film: the award-winning filmmaker Caveh Zahedi, best known for his controversial biographical comedy “I Am A Sex Addict” and for being a filmmaking professor at the heralded research university The New School in New York City. Lamb got the idea to have Zahedi appear in the film after seeing him pop up in an early short film of John Wilson’s before he became an HBO darling.
“I saw him there and thought, ‘Well, I guess Caveh will just, like, be in your movie if you ask nice enough.’ So I sent him an email,” Lamb said. “I don’t have to do a whole lot of acting to pretend to be a young, ambitious artist who’s so serious about being a good artist, but maybe his talent isn’t quite there, because I’ve been that guy, and in some ways I still am … in a way, this film is all about its own making, and that’s what Zahedi’s work is all about. It’s all very self-reflective, so him appearing in the movie is thematically resonant.”
More than anything, however, the film centers Cincinnati in all its glory. Eagle-eyed viewers will be able to pick out various streets, landmarks and oddities from downtown and Over-the-Rhine scattered all throughout the film’s several hilariously awkward moments. In the future, the two plan to do more installments at locations like Jungle Jim’s or Kings Island.
“We’re a very proud Cincinnati movie,” Lamb said. “It’s all on location, all over the city. This was originally intended to be an episodic thing where we told new stories of these characters, but it’s also about highlighting different Cincinnati locations. We’d love to do something where it’s kind of inside-joke-y and very ‘Here are these Cincinnati locations’ while also still being palatable for a broader audience.”
Malatesta will be on a trip halfway across the world when the film premieres at the Cindependent, but shared similar feelings about the film’s obvious love for the Queen City.
“I am truthfully really excited for people to see it,” she said. “I really like making people laugh, and I know for a fact it’s going to make people laugh. Knock on wood. I think the movie is universally funny, but it’s especially funny for people that recognize the landmarks, recognize the places, maybe even recognize some of the people. I really love this city, and I like that we’ve made a movie that is funny for people in Cincinnati.”
“Coloring” premieres Sept. 17 at the Cindependent Film Festival. For more information on “Coloring,” including where to buy tickets, visit Lamb’s Instagram page. For more on the Cindependent, visit the festival’s official website.
